Tutorial

Difference Between ‘Header/Footer’ and ‘Slide Number’ Buttons

One of the great things about PowerPoint is there is almost always more than one way to do things. And almost always the multiple ways of doing things are found in different areas of the program. But one that can be confusing is the ‘Header/Footer’ and ‘Slide Number’ buttons.

I guess the confusion is that they open the exact same dialog box. They are located on the same tab. And located on the same section.

It does not matter which you use. As example, it’s okay to click the ‘Header/Footer’ button and turn on the page numbering. I believe it is just another example of statistics leading the development process. Statistics probably showed a lot of users (tested or observed) where unaware of how to setup page numbers. The obvious answer was to add an easy to identify button labeled ‘Page Number’ – problem solved.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:07:29-07:00July 3rd, 2009|Tutorial|

Clear Text Styles

So you are working in PPT 2007 and enjoying the great design tools like the ability to stylize any text (because all text is WordArt now).

I start with this:

Then we stylize it to look like this:

But later we decide we want it back to standard text – like this:

How do you do that….

Select the text >> go to the Draw-Format tab >> click the drop down to show the full menu of the preset styles >> at the very bottom is the ‘clear wordart’ option (remember, ALL text is now wordart)

Done!

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:09:41-07:00June 25th, 2009|Tutorial|

Add ‘dummy’ Text to a Slide fast

Here is a nifty programming trick that can be helpful when you are demoing PowerPoint (as I have been with a number of specialty training programs).

In any text box, in either PPT 2003 or 2007, type this: =rand()
Then Enter/Return.
It will automatically be filled with a few paragraphs of “The quick brown fox…”!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:12:09-07:00June 11th, 2009|Tutorial|

Ungroup SmartArt!!

With Office 2007’s SP2 installed SmartArt has become a lot more usable/smarter. Now you can use the great diagram templates in SmartArt and ungroup them if needed. Why ungroup? For fine tuning, modifying to meet the slides exact needs, or animating would be a few of my top reasons.

1. Insert SmartArt

2. Ungroup

3. Result is a single box of grouped autoshapes (and the smartart programming for updating text is removed)

4. Ungroup one more time and you have all individual elements

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:12:29-07:00June 9th, 2009|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Even Easier -How Do You Know If SP2 Is Installed?

This is a follow-up to Monday’s post, which is one of the comments submitted to that post (thanks Adam!). We can eliminate 1 step and get the answer to what Service Pack is installed even faster!

1. Office Button >> PowerPoint Options

2. Resources >> About

I overlooked it, but the answer is right here in the About window – even easier!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:14:30-07:00June 3rd, 2009|Tutorial|

How Do You Know If SP2 Is Installed?

Service Pack 2 (SP2) was released for MS Office just a short while ago. For PowerPoint it definitely fixes a number of design annoyances. But I am getting the question how to know if it is installed. Here is the process:

1. Office Button >> PowerPoint Options

2. Resources >> About

3. Top line, near end

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:16:12-07:00June 1st, 2009|Tutorial|
Copyright TLC Creative Services, Inc | All Rights Reserved
Go to Top